Can someone please explain what the correct setting is? I've read the Handbook but can't find anything this specific. I understand that the change could be put in either /etc/make.conf or /etc/portage/package.use, but that an environment string has highest priority.

NOTE: do not use my USE flags from above. They are wrong for almost everyone, and theyre actually probably wrong for me (i havent gone through them in ages). If you try USE="-udev", you will not be pleased with the results most likely _________________Lost configuring your system?
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USE flags are set globally (i.e., ones you want to apply to all packages) in /etc/portage/make.conf. You can set them on a per-package basis in /etc/portage/package.use.

If you install gentoolkit, you can use the equery tool. One of it's commands is 'equery uses <package_name>', which will list all the USE flags for a package, tell you what they mean, and tell you whether they are set or not.

gentoolkit also provides the euse tool, which can be used to find out what a use flag means 'euse -i', or to activate or deactivate use flags. As I recall, it also tells you whether the flag is considered a global or local flag (which is really just a suggestion, I think). I make a habit of putting global flags in make.conf, and local flags in packages.use, in most cases.

There is a also a man page for emerge (and the other utilities as well). Reading them is quite instructive. For example, they explain what you were looking at

Code:

man emerge

If this is a desktop system, you probably want to globally enable X (i.e., you want 'X' to be part of the USE string in make.conf). However, if you selected a desktop profile, like the handbook suggested, it would already be enabled by default, and you wouldn't have to add it to the USE string in your make.conf file. You can see what the effective USE flags are with the command 'emerge --info'. If you comment out the USE string in your make.conf file and use the command again, you can see which USE flags are being enabled by your profile.

Save yourself many headaches, and read the documentation now. All of it. _________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

Ah! Got it! Thanks for the replies. I invoked env-update and profile, but the emerge gave the same response. Then I changed profile from 25 to 26 and away it went. Wasn't sure whether the desktop profiles were restrictions to KDE, Gnome, etc but I now gather that the generic (default) profile is probably console-oriented.

I notice that some of the USE listings are in red and some in purple - any difference? Perhaps the red ones are missing?

Yes, I've read enough of the docn to get started, but there's so much to remember and it's often difficult to remember WHERE a particular item was. The best way is often just to jump in. I haven't seen snything yet explaining the colour coding used on the screen, amongst other things, though it may well be in there.

If you can't find it in the emerge and portage documentation, then I'm sure you can figure it out by enabling a USE flag and seeing what happens to the colors._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

BTW, you are aware that x11-wm/enlightenment-1.0.8 is E16 and not E17?

E17 ebuilds are in the overlay (use layman to get it).

He's still trying to figure out USE flags; don't blow his mind with overlays. _________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

BTW, you are aware that x11-wm/enlightenment-1.0.8 is E16 and not E17?

E17 ebuilds are in the overlay (use layman to get it).

Thanks for this; quit the build as soon as I read it and will move to LXDE until I've figured it out.

Yes, I'll explore USE flags as soon as I have a minimum degree of functionality, including the ability to cut and paste console output into a web page (i.e. a GUI). Reason being I'm documenting the whole thing for my website. As good as Gentoo docn is, I've long believed that a different approach is required to attract a wider User base, and the Rpi has finally prompted me to act. Details here if you're interested, but it's early days:

Lx fans brag about "choice", but this can be confusing for those only accustomed to the "no-choice" of M$. Gentoo is overwhelming, and I think it's best to have a single, simple, well-defined path to a confident outcome. Rpi provides a highly-standardized h'ware platform on which to base this. I also think it's better to prepare the installation medium beforehand, rather than chrooting and all the rest. Fine for those who can; devilish for those who can't. Thanks for your assistance in this.

It's almost trivial once you understand what you're doing. The problem is that there is a lot to learn if you haven't done similar things before.

If you want to, you could create your own installer disk, or even your own Gentoo-based distribution, for Raspberry Pi._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

It's almost trivial once you understand what you're doing. The problem is that there is a lot to learn if you haven't done similar things before.

If you want to, you could create your own installer disk, or even your own Gentoo-based distribution, for Raspberry Pi.

Yes, as with so much in electronics and computing. I've long had a hankering to create a distro of some sort; but the first requirement is a target market, the is second collaborators. Rpi may give me the hardware standardization needed to simplify the project. I'm planning to start promoting the site next year, and if there's a good response I'll certainly be encouraged in this.

It's almost trivial once you understand what you're doing. The problem is that there is a lot to learn if you haven't done similar things before.

If you want to, you could create your own installer disk, or even your own Gentoo-based distribution, for Raspberry Pi.

Yes, as with so much in electronics and computing. I've long had a hankering to create a distro of some sort; but the first requirement is a target market, the is second collaborators. Rpi may give me the hardware standardization needed to simplify the project. I'm planning to start promoting the site next year, and if there's a good response I'll certainly be encouraged in this.

Build a working knowledge of Gentoo yourself, and then you might recruit some collaborators. I imagine there is an interest in Raspberry Pi._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

Yes, as with so much in electronics and computing. I've long had a hankering to create a distro of some sort; but the first requirement is a target market, the is second collaborators. Rpi may give me the hardware standardization needed to simplify the project. I'm planning to start promoting the site next year, and if there's a good response I'll certainly be encouraged in this.

Well, if you want someone to collaborate with then I would certainly be interested.

I've been using Gentoo something like 7 or 8 years now and have been messing about with the Raspberry Pi for a few months now.

In my case I cannot bring myself to use any packaged distros because I'm a bit of nut for optimisation and nice slick operating systems! I occasionally tinker with Ubuntu and Fedora but only within the confines of of VMs, and since I moved from Slackware to Red Hat to SuSE to Gentoo all those years ago, I've never looked back.

I've tried a couple of the Debian-based distros on the Pi but "apt-get" doesn't really float my boat for package management so tonight I've started the first Gentoo build on the Pi.

So if I can bring anything to the table to help you out then please let me know. Once I get to the stage of a working GUI on the Pi, I am thinking of maybe doing some tutorial installation videos to put up on YouTube, I really do want to see how far it's possible to push a Pi.

Once Raspbian was going I started investigating things. There's a slew of new minimalist browsers out there, the most promising of which seems to be Uzbl (http://uzbl.org/) - very keyboard-oriented. Because the Rpi sits behind the TV it's too far away for normal monitor-style viewing (especially with my eyesight) so I'm using Midori with zoom upped to 200% - very inconvenient because I haven't yet found how to set this as the default. I've briefly messed with altering the amount of RAM allocated to the GPU, but as yet without definitive results. The Rpi is definitely CPU limited, and an optimized setup, along with a careful selection of apps, will be needed for the modern "must-have" - a "rewarding User experience".

> I've been using Gentoo something like 7 or 8 years now and have been messing about with the Raspberry Pi for a few months now.

I spent a couple of enjoyable years with Gentoo; went back to PCLOS in order to support friends keen on Lx. KDE 4 killed off that enthusiasm; I'm still using KDE 3.5 - the zenith of Desktop development IMHO - and haven't yet found anything to equal it, either full-featured or minimalist (I used Fvwm on Gentoo in the past).

> In my case I cannot bring myself to use any packaged distros because I'm a bit of nut for optimisation and nice slick operating systems!

Agreed!

> I occasionally tinker with Ubuntu and Fedora ... never looked back.

There's a sameness creeping over the field. Many have moved to the mobile development scene, I'd guess, but I've some personal opinions about the need for a new way forward in the Lx Desktop PC realm that get me badly flamed on other forums (fora?).

> I've tried a couple of the Debian-based distros on the Pi ... first Gentoo build on the Pi.

I'm about ready to go back to the Gentoo build now that I've satified my basic curiosity about the device itself. Am also rebuilding Gentoo on my Desktop and Laptop so as to have familiar environments all round. Looking to the Xmas break to move these forward.

> So if I can bring anything to the table to help you out then please let me know.

OK, thanks; will do, and vice versa. Perhaps we should move to a new thread for this.

> Once I get to the stage ... installation videos to put up on YouTube,

Great idea. Don't have the equipment or experience myself, but could help with the documentation side and some still photos (have just bought a camera tripod).

> I really do want to see how far it's possible to push a Pi.

Yes, I'm sure it'll open up a lot of new areas, hence my enthusiasm for simplifying the User's first Gentoo install and attracting new Users to it.

Thanks for the hints and this is the first time I've ever deployed distcc - so I have started by deploying it across my two very similar AMD64 machines at home.

It does appear to be working in as much as the compiling host ("capella") is currently compiling a new version of Chromium and running "top" on the idle host ("betelgeuse"), I can see instances of "cc1plus" taks being started by user "distcc" on it - so it's fairly safe to assume it's working at least that far.

I'm just curious about the fact that as a Gnome 2 user, I have the GUI distcc Monitor open on both the desktops but neither window shows any distcc connection activity. Do you know what might be the issue with that?

Could either of you comment on this. My Rpi is a Model B - two USB ports, one Ethernet, and 512MB of RAM as I understand it.

Both 'top' and 'free' give available RAM as 189MB, and when I reduce the default GPU allocation from 64MB to 32MB, available RAM jumps to 212MB. My incipient Gentoo installation confirms 189MB of available RAM.

The Raspberry Pi uses a technology called Package on Package for the RAM.
The large chip in the middle if the PCB is actually two chips, one on top the other. The Broadcom SoC is on the bottom, the RAM on top.
If you can post the numbers off the RAM, we can tell what size it is.

If you have old firmware, it will only support up to 256Mb RAM anyway, even if you have 512Mb installed.

--- edit ---

32Mb GPU RAM?
Newer firmware has a 16Mb GPU RAM option too.

--- edit some more ---
You get a new kernel with new firmware. My uname -a shows

I downloaded the latest Gentoo Rpi firmware using git, wrote it across to the card and rebooted. Result: STILL only have 256MB RAM available. As you can see, same as yours other than the Pi_USB being (none):

> If you can post the numbers off the RAM, we can tell what size it is.

Could you explain how to get "the numbers off the RAM"? If you're referring to the numbers on the chip itself:

SAMSUNG 225
KuP26324ED AGCI
GAD0238X

Thanks for your ongoing assistance here. The latest Raspbian image zip on the Rpi download page is still dated back in October, so I assume that most of the world is still only supporting 256MB RAM? I'll put the results of all this on the Rpi forum after I'm confident of what's what.

So I guess they don't want to talk about it. Anyhow, I've a few uses in mind for the Rpi that don't use the screen, so no loss in the long term. BTW amd now compiling Gentoo on the Rpi and all going well.

Model B Pis manufactured after October 15th (approx) are 512Mb. Before that date they are 256Mb.
If you dealt with RS or Farnell, they shipped 512Mb Pis from then, or so the raspberry Pi site would have us believe.

Farnell==Element 14._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

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